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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Issues in e-learning quality assurance

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As a decisive factor, the future of any discipline rests on quality, and e-learning is no exception. Due to its multidisciplinary nature, the contribution from various fields such as education, technology, and economy are needed to achieve quality, thereby creating rich learning experience. Undertaking such a task is challenging according to Pawlowski and Ehler (2006) because "it is necessary to find a valid perspective and definition of quality. This requires an answer to the question for which processes of educational scenario quality development has to be carried out, which quality and according to which perspective it is defined." Being diverse and situational/context dependent, there seems not to be an absolute category for e-learning quality. Many quality assurance methods have been tried to define quality in e-learning; however, they all contributed to extending the domain further. To that end, Ehler (2003) made a distinction between the "fundamentally different" aspects to analyse quality. Other organizations such as the OECD (2001) have also tried to consider other standpoints. This paper discusses some of the issues involved with assuring quality in e-learning. The paper is expected to serve as an initial platform to consider the concept now that the region is embracing e-learning quickly.